The Great Train Robbery
by silverball
Summary: The first and possibly last Gundam 00 fic to be set in a fictional Midwest. Featuring almost everyone. Read me, you know you want to.. Rated K for gambling.
1. Ch1 Sunrise Town

Health warning: My sincerest apologies to Sunrise for writing this. I was bored at work. Don't take any of this seriously. All comments are welcome!

**Chapter One: Sunrise Town**

It was the height of noon and the afternoon sunlight beat down on the ground, scorching every living creature in sight. Not a breeze was to be felt by the inhabitants of Sunrise Town, population 43, and even the desert scorpions had ran away to the next village in search of something more exciting.

Inside the Ptolemy Saloon, where the action of this story begins, the regulars were doing their normal daily activities, namely playing poker over and over again. The four poker players at the corner table were all male, and they in fact made up a secret organization called Celestial Being. In the olden days, when the town was still thriving and prosperous, Celestial Being's job was to keep law and order. They would interrupt unruly shootouts between wannabe cowboys by firing a huge cannon between the rivalling factions. It usually worked. Celestial Being was very good at their job. Gradually, there were less and less shootouts but at the same time, the population of the town dropped like a fat rock, until there were only 43 people in the town. Still, as long as there was peace, Celestial Being didn't mind. Now, their days were generally spent at Ptolemy, playing their favourite card game. It wasn't a bad saloon either, apart from the fact that they were only given Coke because the barmaid Sumeragi kept stowing away all the alcohol, which sort of defeated the purpose of opening a bar in the first place.

Today, because of the mind-dulling heat, the poker game was going rather slowly. 'Call or fold?' Tieria Erde said impatiently. He often wondered at the brain capacity of his fellow team members and thought them unfit to be in the organisation anyway. The other members knew this because Tieria was constantly telling them exactly how unfit they were. But deep down inside, Tieria didn't really want them to leave because then he would be all by himself and look like a loser.

"I think he's bluffing," muttered Allelujah under his breath. Allelujah was another member of Celestial Being. He was OK most of the time but once every full moon he would go off somewhere and not return until the next day. He was a very mysterious guy. But the others never bothered to ask where he went.

"Tieria never bluffs," Lockon said. Lockon managed to win 80% of the poker games whilst flirting with every single female who passed through the doors of Ptolemy Saloon. (ed: obviously this is Lyle and not Neil.) Today his victim was the new barmaid, a pink haired girl called Feldt, who kept blushing and distracting herself by wiping cups or something.

Setsuna was the last and youngest member of the group. He didn't talk very much and took everything very seriously. He also had the best horse out of all of them, a magnificent white stallion called Exia. Setsuna talked to his horse a lot more than to the other guys. There were also rumors abound that the horse sometimes glowed green at night, but nobody believed it the rumour.

The doors to the saloon suddenly flung open and Lasse staggered in. Lasse worked at the saloon and he had gone out to run some errands. He had obviously been attacked because his lip was cut and there was a huge lump on his forehead, where he had been beaten. 'Lasse!' Sumeragi ran out anxiously. "What on earth happened to you?"

"I got attacked," he said weakly. "All the money's gone… I saw him...I saw Ribbons." His eyes rolled backwards and he abruptly fainted.

There was a shocked silence, which Lockon broke by asking tentatively, 'Um… Who's Ribbons?'

"He's an evil drug lord," Feldt answered, her voice shaking. "He leads a criminal organisation. They do everything – extortion, kidnapping, arson. He's got half the government under his control. They call themselves…the Innovators." At this point she became too overwhelmed and had to sit down.

"I told Lasse to put the money in the bank," said Sumeragi, who had gone as pale as two sheets. "All our money… It's all gone."

There was another round of silence as they all absorbed this shocking news. No more money inevitably meant the saloon had to close down. With no saloon, there would be no poker. Celestial Being would have to go find normal jobs, like accounting. It was a terrifying prospect.

"We'll get the money back." All eyes turned upon Setsuna, the one who had spoken.

There was a strange gleam in his eyes that none of them had seen before. But they all recognised it. It was the Gleam of Battle, a life which they had abandoned long ago.

_Celestial Being was back._

- TBC -


	2. Ch2 Revenge

**Ch.2 Revenge**

Now that they had agreed to get the money back, all they had to do now was to figure out a way to do it. When Lasse woke up, he found all four members of Celestial Being crowded around his bed, jostling to ask him questions.

"After they took the money, did you see where the robbers were headed?" Allelujah asked.

"Um.." Lasse struggled to revive the memory. "I'm not sure. They hit me on the head, so I was half unconscious by then…But I think I heard them heading north," he said.

"That's the train station," Tieria said. "They're leaving the country tonight."

"Tonight?!" said Feldt shrilly. "They're escaping with all our money?!"

"Calm down," said Tieria. "I know for a fact that the train will pass this way tonight. All we have to do is to wait at the railways, ambush the train, and get the money back."

After a brief discussion, Celestial Being came up with a plan. They would put up a roadworks sign along the tracks, create a diversion to distract Ribbons and the rest of his gang, and at the same time unload all the money that the Innovators had robbed from them.

It was a simple plan, but a very good plan. Sumeragi, however, still had some doubts.

"The railway…" she said hesitantly. "Isn't that where the Masked Rider usually appears at night?"

Everyone fell silent. The Masked Rider was a lunatic who had been in the army years ago. His real name was Graham Aker but all the kids in the vicinity called him the Mask, because he was never seen without one. Furthermore, Graham had a personal grudge towards Setsuna because Exia had accidentally kicked him in the balls once. After that, Graham was always trying to kill Setsuna by popping up in unexpected places. He usually roamed the wild moors at night, howling "I'm coming to get you, Shonen!" Everyone found it extremely disturbing, apart from Setsuna himself, who thought Graham was a total moron.

"I don't care. I'm going to do this anyway. I am Gundam," he said. Nobody understood this but they were all used to Setsuna's cryptic sayings, so nobody bothered to ask what he meant.

That night, all four members of Celestial Being hid at certain checkpoints along the route that the train was supposed to pass through. They had put a Roadworks sign in the middle of the track to ensure the train would stop at the right place. Sure enough, the train containing the evil overlord, Ribbons, and his gang the Innovators came along at the exact moment that Sumeragi had predicted. Upon seeing the sign, the train came to a halt.

Inside the train, Ribbons jerked awake. "What's happening? Why have we stopped? We're supposed to be out of the country in three hours," he snapped, looking around at his henchmen in anger.

"There's a roadblock," Wang Liu Mei, one of Ribbons' loyal henchmen, explained. Ribbons gave her a stinging slap. "Deal with it!" he said shrilly. He turned to the rest of his henchmen. They were all of uncertain gender and were used to their leader's temper tantrums.

Outside, Tieria and Allelujah were preparing for the 'diversion' to distract the Innovators. The plan was that the two perform magic tricks to entertain the Innovators, making them lose track of time, while Lockon and Setsuna were supposed to creep to the back of the train and unload the bags from the freight carrier. Allelujah was meant to be the 'magician', whereas Tieria had assigned himself the role of 'beautiful assistant'. However, Allelujah wasn't very cooperative today. "Hurry up and change!" Tieria said, irritated. His partner in crime didn't move. For some reason, Allelujah was staring fixedly at something in the night sky, his eyes wide and glassy.

Tieria looked up. Then he realized: it was the night of the full moon.

The next thing Tieria knew, Allelujah's eyes had turned from their normal grey colour, to a bright, manic yellow. "Who gives a **** about this ****!!" he yelled. "I'm gonna **** their ******** ***** and **** up their ****!!!" (You get the idea.) Tieria never knew that Allelujah knew such words. "Who are you?!" Tieria squeaked. This was definitely not the calm-tempered Allelujah he knew.

"I AM HALLELUJAH," came the reply.

- tbc -


	3. Ch3 Finale

Ch.3 - Finale

The next thing Tieria knew, 'Hallelujah' had ditched their original plan before he could stop him. With an earth-shattering cry, Hallelujah had ran up to the train, pulled off the iron door, and was challenging the Innovators to combat. On the way he had pulled up a cactus from the ground with his bare hands and was evidently planning to use it as a weapon.

'Crap,' thought Tieria. He had to warn the other members, and fast. Now he understood why Allelujah kept disappearing every time a full moon came by. All along, he had been concealing his double identity, his second self, a vicious and maniacal character that the others had never even heard of.

Meanwhile, Hallelujah was inside the train, brandishing the cactus at the shellshocked Innovators. Their leader, Ribbons, however, remained exceedingly calm. A smile of pure evil began to spread over his face.

"You want to fight?" he said, in a soft but dangerous tone. The evil overlord beckoned one of his shemale helpers. "Hand me the Ball," he ordered. Hallelujah's eyes followed the gigantic ball that was being passed to the leader of the Innovators. It was violently shaking as if uncontrollable excitement was being repressed. There was a respectful silence as Ribbons took hold of the red-and white sphere. Lifting the ball high up in the air, there was a moment where he paused for dramatic effect. Then he proceeded to smash the ball upon the ground, with a deafening warcry:

"Ali Al-Saachez… I CHOOSE YOU"

**  
Epilogue

In the distance, the sun began to rise from the East, illuminating the bodies scattered across the barren landscape. A massacre had occurred last night. The two great forces, Celestial Being and the Innovators, had fought against each other, and both had lost. High in the sky, black vultures had already begun to accumulate, forming a dark swathing circle, the birds looking gleefully down at tonight's meal.

A lone figure approached the scene of death. "Let this be a lesson to all of us," he said, sighing in regret and shaking his head, talking to nobody in particular. "From the fallen ashes, let the phoenix of life arise."

As if making a sudden discovery, the figure walked to the back of the half-destroyed train. There were dents and other punch marks all over the exterior. The figure opened the door to the freight carrier, revealing a mountain of gold stored within. The gold, like the man's blond hair, shone in the bright sunlight.

Smiling secretively to himself, Graham Aker retrieved the bags of gold from the train, put the bags into the back of his car, and drove away.

FIN


End file.
